


out of a misty dream

by nausicaa_of_phaeacia



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Drinking, F/M, Gen, Laura (1944) - Freeform, Mark McPherson, Phil Coulson: Human Desaster, Post-Season/Series 03, au-ish, the character death is a MISUNDERSTANDING I'm not a monster
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-03
Updated: 2016-08-03
Packaged: 2018-07-29 05:05:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7671193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nausicaa_of_phaeacia/pseuds/nausicaa_of_phaeacia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something horrible seems to have happened to Daisy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	out of a misty dream

**Author's Note:**

  * For [zauberer_sirin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/gifts), [Skyepilot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyepilot/gifts).
  * Inspired by [the movie Laura](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/218926) by Otto Preminger (after Vera Caspary). 



> This was inspired by the Otto Preminger film _Laura_ (1944). It's one of my absolut favourites. I was going to put more time and energy into writing this, but ended up just letting it happen, so I hope it's still enjoyable. 
> 
> For zauberer_sirin and Skyepilot because we talked about this and Human Desaster Phil Coulson on tumblr. :)

She’s just been gone too long. At least, that’s what he keeps telling everyone. It’s the only thing that makes May look at him like maybe he is a little distressed child. It’s not that the others don’t seem to be worried about her – obviously, they are –, but he feels like he’s the only one taking this seriously enough. They have been following her footsteps for months now, and the fact that there are no new leads, really, are what he thinks should make everyone’s alarm bells go off. Daisy might not let them actually find her, but she wouldn’t have the heart to fall off the face of the earth.

Things get much more serious when he actually catches up with the few breadcrumbs she’s left and find her hiding place, a tiny apartment above a Chinese takeaway restaurant. She would never let them get this close (she would never let anyone get this close, not now). His hands are shaking as he’s going through the things she left behind in her small room (it feels like he’s intruding, like he’s violating her space; it’s why he’s making the rest of the team wait outside). It doesn’t look like she’s left in a hurry, and there’s no evidence of a struggle; but considering how dead the flowers on her windowsill look, she must have been gone for a week or so at least (Daisy might be a busy person and on top of a lot of Most Wanted lists, but she would never neglect a living thing).

At first, he thinks she might have been kidnapped; after a few hours, when he’s sent the team home, that’s the only thought he’s still trying to cling onto. He’s been through most of her things, it’s a tiny apartment: the handful of books on a small shelf, her clothes she’s mostly keeping in a large suitcase at the moment, a few CDs on the coffee table, a few notes and photographs in one of her drawers, the few cooking utensils she’s keeping on a small table in the tiny kitchen. There’s not all that much to see, but he’s been going through everything for hours now, again and again, never less careful and shy than when he touched her things for the first time, but the data he’s able to derive from her stuff doesn’t get more at all. 

He returns to the base empty-handed, without a clue, really. He keeps thinking she would never have wanted him to find her, would never have wanted him to get such a close look at where she’s been staying. Sure, this apartment is just like all the other hiding places they’ve looked at in the past: a temporary home, a place she’d fill up with replaceable things, bare necessities, to stay there for a time too short to make the place look like her. May tells him Daisy’s far too smart to get herself killed, and he knows he needs to believe her. He still takes a sleeping pill before changing into his pyjamas.

When he turns on the small TV in his bunk the next morning to see the news, he almost drops the remote. A far too cheerful sounding young news anchor announces that there’s been a murder close to Daisy’s last hiding spot, mere yards away from the Chinese takeaway restaurant. He needs to sit down for a moment, wiping sweat off his forehead as the woman offers a few details: the corpse of a young, dark-haired woman dressed in dark colours, apparently shot in the chest, has been seized by the FBI immediately upon its discovery.

He doesn’t even manage to move or switch of the TV when someone knocks on his bunk door. He probably isn’t even blinking. May’s voice comes floating through the door, muffled, but very punctuated: “It’s not her”, and after a moment, “You know she’s too smart.”  
It doesn’t really relieve him, but it gets him to put on clothes, at least, and take up investigations. He insists on Talbot giving him the file he’s been keeping on Daisy, asks the new Director for a few days to look into the murder, calls their FBI liaison office, but for some weird reason, his appeal to get access to the body is rejected immediately.

Needless to say, he drags Mack to Daisy’s apartment again. Mack drives him, since Coulson doesn’t really seem fit enough to get behind the wheel. They examine the pavement around the restaurant, the narrow staircase leading to the apartment, the restaurant’s kitchen, look for security cameras on the street but find none. It gets dark until they’re done searching the area, and Mack offers to drive again, because Coulson’s hands still don’t seem to steady. He’s made dozens of phone calls, has asked dozens of questions, photographed countless little marks and dents and small things that look like they might be evidence in a really bad movie (but probably not in real life). 

Coulson declines, and Mack swears he looks like he’s about to cry, carefully places an arm around Coulson’s shoulders, tells him Daisy is going to show up again, that she’s far too good to let anything happen to herself. Coulson manages to nod, tells Mack to get back to base, announces he’s going to go through everything in the apartment again. Mack wants to object, but one look at Coulson’s face tells him to let him go back to the apartment. It’s his eyes; it’s hard to even say anything when he looks this sad. Mack figures it’s better than having him lock himself in his bunk or something, have him overthink everything without having something to do. This is a task, at least.

After Mack leaves, Coulson goes to buy something to eat from the supermarket on the corner. He feels somewhat guilty for thinking about food when Daisy might be dead, but he knows he hasn’t really eaten in two days, and May keeps sending him very short texts to remind him there’s a certain amount of food he absolutely needs to eat every day (she’s just messaged him that she’s not going to stop until he sends her a photo of himself eating actual food). Walking down the aisles, though, there’s nothing that particularly speaks to him, so he just grabs a pack of crispbread, some cheese and a large bottle of water. As he passes the wine shelf, though, he figures that since he didn’t bring any sleeping pills to the investigation, he might just as well buy a bottle of Scotch. The pitiful look the cashier casts at him is enough to make him want to scream; instead, he wishes her a pleasant evening as she hands him the change.

Back in the apartment, he takes a half-hearted selfie with the opened pack of crispbread, doesn’t notice before sending it that the picture shows the bottle and Daisy’s hula girl in the background. He’s probably just too exhausted. May sends him a single strict-looking emoji; at least she doesn’t reprimand him again. Crispbread must be better than nothing. 

He tries his hardest not to open the bottle before he’s finished eating, because that would seem too desperate, even for a situation like this. Basically, he’s still on the clock, so there’s that. An hour later, he still ends up wandering around the apartment, carrying around the bottle and a glass as he’s examining the apartment again, trying to hope for some evidence that she might be okay still. A fourth (or is it the fifth?) look at her suitcase reveals a record in a plain white sleeve; he must have missed it in the thin front pocket. It’s a Chet Baker record, and it’s what finally makes him shed a few tears (it might also be the first half of the Scotch bottle, but it doesn’t really make a difference at this point). 

He can’t listen to the record, there’s no player, but he knows it so well; it’s actually his. She must have taken it from his desk drawer at one point; it’s one of his favourites, but he hasn’t had the time to listen to music in quite a while. He decides to sit on the bed for the rest of the bottle, leafing through Talbot’s file on Daisy. There’s basically nothing in it that he doesn’t know already; Mack and him have been quite diligent in their work. Finally, at the back of the file, there’s an enlarged close-up picture of Daisy; she’s smiling modestly, it’s the smile that usually tells him that she’s feeling flattered by one of his remarks. He wonders when it’s been taken, can’t stop looking at it, at her eyes, her lips, the way her hair looks a little tousled from the wind. 

Again, it’s probably the Scotch, but he can’t help trying to imagine what she would look like if she entered the door right now. He guesses she’d be a little thinner, her hair maybe a little shorter than when she left S.H.I.E.L.D., her skin a little more tan, but the smile would be the same. She’d probably walk up to him and put her hand on his shoulder. Maybe she would hug him. Maybe she’d have a glass of Scotch with him (there’s not much left now, but enough to offer her a drink). Maybe she’d sit on the bed and talk to him all night long. Maybe she’d tell him stories about her life on the run. Maybe she would even – 

There’s someone at the door, and he sits up with a jerk, accidentally knocks over the bottle, but it’s empty, so he doesn’t even bother to catch it. He fiddles with his jacket to get out his gun, but his head is spinning, so he isn’t able to reach it in time before someone pushes him against the wall behind the bed from afar.

From afar.  
He manages to sit up (god, his eyelids are heavy), and before he can make out a face, Daisy is kneeling next to him on the bed, holding his hand, checking his back and shoulders to make sure he hasn’t broken a bone or anything, apologizing again and again, repeating his name. His tongue feels like it’s barely there, but he’s sure he’s telling her right now that it’s okay, that everything’s fine. He can’t really follow everything she’s saying, but she keeps asking him what happened, and he keeps trying to tell her she’s dead. When she finally understands, she smiles at him like he’s the biggest idiot in the universe (to be fair, that’s probably who he is). He thinks it’s strange that she doesn’t even mention that he’s drunk. Maybe she didn’t notice, but he’s pretty sure he’s drunk enough to feel it in the morning. 

He jolts awake the next day, inexplicably scared that something bad has happened to him, and worse, to Daisy. Daisy was dead. The world still doesn’t seem very steady, but he manages to find his way to the bathroom and wash his face (that helps a little), and even to walk to the kitchen. He expects to be blinded by the sunlight shining in through the windows, but apparently, Daisy’s drawn the curtains. Actually, Daisy is sitting on the kitchen table, drinking instant coffee (it smells familiar), gesturing for him to sit down on the only chair. He’s too tired to resist, barely manages to walk up to the table. 

She places a very strange-looking, thick beverage in front of him. He looks at her like he’s going to ask if she’s joking, but she just nods, trying really hard not to laugh. He takes a sip. It tastes horrible, but there’s something in it that makes it bearable.  
His tongue feels like it weighs a thousand pounds. “Is there alcohol in this?”  
“Yeah. Quite a bit, actually. It helps with the rest.”  
“I think I’m still drunk.”  
“I know.” It doesn’t sound mean; looking up at her, he receives a very warm smile. He blushes; he knows he doesn’t deserve this.  
“You were dead.”  
“So you told me.”  
He keeps drinking, and he can feel himself getting a little buzzed from it. Oddly enough, it’s helping with his head; he’s surprised at how quickly the drink is kicking in, but is satisfied enough with the result to not ask her for details. He probably wouldn’t want to know about the ingredients anyway.

“FBI found a body around the corner. They’re blocking everyone else from investigating it.”  
“But why –“  
“A young woman with dark hair, dressed in black.”  
“Oh.”  
“Yeah.”  
“And the empty flat.”  
“Yeah. I figured you’d never let us get this close.”  
“To be honest, Coulson – I wanted you to find the apartment.”  
“Why?”  
“I guess it sounds stupid now ... I wanted to show you I was okay.”  
“By showing me your hiding spot?”  
“Yes. I mean I thought you wouldn’t show it to anyone else. Mack, maybe, but not S.H.I.E.L.D., let alone any of the other agencies.”  
“I didn’t ... Not really. I mean only after I thought you were dead.”  
It makes her smile.  
“Why’d you even think I was dead? Didn’t you think I’d want to see you?”

He’s trying not to blush again, but the drink is not really helping; he downs the rest. She refills his glass from a blender.  
“You should finish it.”  
He’s positively buzzed already, hesitates to drink more.  
“Trust me. Someone at school taught me how to mix it.”  
“Not sure that’s convincing.” It sounds grumpy, but she notices his smirk, so there’s that. He empties the glass faster that he probably should have (he suddenly can’t feel his toes anymore).

“Phil.”  
“Hmm.”  
“You didn’t answer my question.”  
“Which o – Oh. Right.”  
“So?”  
“Well ... No. I figured if you’d wanted to see me, you’d just –“  
“Stop by at the base? And have everyone know what I look like right now? Walk into the lion’s den?”  
“Lions? Daisy, you know how everyone –“  
“Not the new Director.”  
“I guess – I guess you’re right. He’s a little ... overeager.”  
“I did want to see you though. I thought you’d figure out I let you find this place on purpose.”  
He doesn’t know what to say to that.  
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know you’d think I’d been killed.”  
“Or kidnapped.”  
“Or kidnapped. Sorry.”

He raises the glass to his lips again, tilting it for some last drops.  
“I mean I saw you last night, Phil.”  
Now he’s really blushing. “I apologize. I don’t normally –“  
“I know.”  
He can’t look at her.  
“I saw the picture on the bed.”  
He forces himself to look up and meet her eyes. She’s still sitting on the table, and it seems so unreal to be looking up to that smile, because it sure as hell is her smile, but there’s something to it that he’s not sure he’s ever seen before – not in her smile, but probably not in anyone else’s, either, not even Audrey’s.  
“You really missed me, huh?”  
His nod is barely there, but it makes her lean down and kiss him, wildly, her tongue making him feel like this is probably a dream, it’s probably one of those dreams where the best things happen and you wake up disappointed, a dream where Daisy isn’t dead, where Daisy just shows up in the middle of the night and makes out with him in the morning simply because she wants to.

“Coulson.” He flinches a little.  
“Phil, your eyes are closed.”  
“Aren’t yours?”  
“No? I mean – not all the time?”  
He feels her slide down from the table to sit on his lap, and good god, it’s doing things to him. She starts kissing him again, laughing against his lips, positively destroying him, ruining him completely.  
“Sorry I’m not sober,” he manages to whisper between kisses. She just smiles against his cheek, kisses his neck, pulls herself even closer to him (he wouldn’t have thought that was possible). When he finally opens his eyes, he’s almost sure he’s dreaming; Daisy is beaming, smiling at him like he might be the greatest thing in the world right now, straddling him in this dimly-lit, absurdly tiny kitchen, their kisses tasting like alcohol and avocados (or whatever was in the drink), her eyes piercing his. Finally, for what feels like an actual first time, he smiles at her, everything else fading, leaving them the only two people on the planet right now.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! Hope you liked it! :)  
> This was pretty rushed and everything, so maybe I'll write another proper and more AU-ish fic, I don't know. Phil is such a hopeless case.
> 
> The title's from a poem by Ernest Dowson, _Brief Life_. It's being read in the movie (don't want to spoil it).


End file.
